Construction, Property and Cities Posts
Why a warm home will soon become a luxury
Politicians love to pose as saviours of the planet. But it’s the public that will bear the exorbitant cost
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Environmentalism is at the root of the housing crisis
Labour’s pandering to green quangos shows it’s not remotely serious about building the homes we need
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How Net Zero leads to mouldy homes
The UK government’s insulation programme has been an all-too-predictable disaster
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Five Critical Essays on Architectural Ethics
These days it seems that ethical behaviour has become a given
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Labour’s elitist assault on housebuilding
Keir Starmer has sided with Brussels and the British aristocracy to block thousands of homes from being built
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The ‘blob’ has gone to war with housebuilding
Britain’s environmental quangos are perpetuating the housing crisis
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Why water rationing is coming down the pipeline
Instead of securing our water supply, the government plans to radically reduce home usage
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Why our infrastructure is falling apart
Britain’s elites have given up on building for the future
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The heat pump revolution: extracting power from the people
The climate technocrats’ posturing over heat pumps will be expensive, impractical and invasive
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Grenfell
On the anniversary of the disastrous Grenfell fire, we are right to question the state of the construction sector
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Why they can’t fix the housing crisis
Both the Tories and Labour dread the radical shake-up we really need
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Britain’s housing crisis
James and campaigner Kennedy Walker debate solutions to Britain’s housing crisis
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The future of housing
The future of housing
In 2004, with the architect Ian Abley, I published a book titled Why is construction so backward?.
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Report on Sheffield City Centre, September 2015
This report suggests how technology and a fresh, libertarian approach to the future of Britain’s cities could go one better than the samey, grey spatial determinism that passes for urban policy these days
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Colour, brands and identity in tomorrow’s cities
In London, they brought the fluid neon colours back. For more than 50 years, the moving, illuminated electronic liquid of Lucozade, an energy drink, inspired motorists driving above down-at-heel Brentford, as they reached the western approaches of Britain’s capital at night
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This land is our land
If New Labour is serious about making homes more affordable, then it should allow members of the public to buy land and build homes where they please.
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In praise of big cities
A controlled demolition of a new report that says… cities make us sick
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A big stink over contamination
High profile companies face embarrassing clean-up operations – and ridiculous amounts of hysteria
Read the full article...The dangers of Brownfield Brutalism
New Labour’s narrow vision for infrastructure causes overcrowding and inflames the Malthusian idea that there are ‘too many immigrants’.
Read the full article...IT holds key to East London regeneration
Everywhere you go in an office, regulators want to control your life.
Read the full article...Stop this ‘urban regeneration’ roadshow
We need some tall thinking on city planning.
Read the full article...Metro miserablists
Two new top-level reports only seem to see the downsides to life in a big city.
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Homes 2016: Blueprint Broadside
Too many blueprints for the home of the future begin from the interior. They should start from the factory, argues James Woudhuysen and Ian Abley
Read the full article...Construction and transport: Victorian Britain lives on
Risk-aversion, short-termism and technophobia are holding back the UK’s roads, railways and buildings.
Read the full article...Why is construction so backward?
The UK government should ditch the sustainababble and build the prefab houses Britain needs.
Read the full article...Time to build a fresh, non-nimby approach to new housing
We should have more stigma-free prefab homes
Kate Barker’s final report on the supply of houses in this country, commissioned by Gordon Brown and due in the spring, comes not a moment too soon.
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Review of Lightness by Adriaan Beukers and Ed van Hinte
Adriaan Beukers and Ed van Hinte, Lightness: the Inevitable Renaissance of Minimum Energy Structures, Uitgeverij 010 Publishers, July 1998
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#IOPC IN THE NEWS AGAIN. Pix: DG Rachel Watson; Acting Deputy DG Kathie Cashell;
Amanda Rowe and Steve Noonann, both Acting Directors, Operations.
That's a lot of acting! No wonder the IOPC's report never saw the light of day.
Are we a bit flaccid, perhaps?
A dubious editorial decision by the Daily Mail that risks glorifying one of the most evil men in history. Who cares about his air fryer recipes?